Top 7 Tips for Presenting Financial Information to Senior Executives

Top 7 Tips for Presenting Financial Information to Senior Executives

Are you billed to present financial statement or information to senior executives in your company? If you are, then the tips shared hein this post will help you make your presentation a success.

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A very common issue among the professionals who are willing to gain more visibility in their organizations is that they don’t know how to present financial information to the senior executives of the organization.

When it comes to presenting information to senior executives within your organization, it is going to have the biggest impact on your career.

Today, I have come up with some of the effective tips that will be handy the next time you are going to present financial information or statement to senior executives in your company.

1. Start strong
   
   A solid start is very important for any presentation and audience, but you might find executives less forgiving. By starting strong with executives infers that you are convincing them that you are not going to waste their time. You gain the confidence of executive by setting up a clear direction for what is going to be present and what the desired result is.

Executives have frequent meetings daily, thus it is possible that they don’t always know what the purpose of the next meeting is.

Their assistants may have fixed the meeting on their behalf and they may not have the time to review any information before the meeting.

Thus, you need to tell them the reason they are seated for your presentation and why your presentation is crucial to them.

2. Use your time effectively

Time is very precious for senior executives. They have various other things they could be doing in the time they have given you. Prepare yourself to cover all your topics within the time frame. Also try to leave some time for questions or discussion.

3. Be flexible while presenting

It might be possible that senior executives can ask you to go back on your previous slide or jump forward to a particular section of your presentation. Don’t get surprised when they interrupt you as you present a thoroughly crafted slide.

A lengthy discussion on a slide means you need to whip through other slides in order to get back on track in terms of covering all of your slides.

Sometimes, you may forget covering all topics because the discussion on a particular slide of presentation is going really well. You need to be flexible and cover what your senior executives want to focus on rather than what you want to. To accomplish you goals, it is not necessary to go through every slide.

4. Be ready with supporting data

Make sure that you should be able to answer the questions from the executives during your presentation.

Senior executives are experienced professionals and are experts at finding errors in logic or content. They want to ensure you comprehend the implications and outcomes, and that they can trust your recommendations and analysis.

It is always the best approach to anticipate questions by knowing what content could be susceptible to further questioning.

Prepare yourself with additional data on any section of your presentation that could be taken as unexpected, result in significant changes and challenging to current practices.

You should have supporting data at your fingertips, including back-up slides or a spreadsheet ready to go.

5. Know your audience

In the case of senior executives, it is always imperative to know your audience. You can take the help of an insider who can guide you on how to effectively present you slides to the group of executives.

The person can be the executive’s direct reports, executive sponsor, or their assistant or next-level manager who has interacted with your audience before or regularly interact with them.

6. Keep it simple

In a survey, when top executives were asked about how one can effectively present financial information to them, the feedback from them was to make the presentations simple and shorter.

The experts found that executives don’t have much time to learn about your topic, they just only want to know how they can help you.

Avoid extraneous information that could lead your discussion off track. The more simple and shorter your presentation is, the easier it will be for executives to comprehend how they can help you and move things ahead.

7. Be prepared

The opportunity to present financial information to senior executives doesn’t happen every day.

A key to seizing the moment is to be prepared, which may mean conducting a comprehensive analysis and review of the topic, carefully building slides that clearly convey your message, creating back-up slides with supporting data, seeking peer feedback prior to presenting, etc.

Preparing yourself for a successful presentation infers that you will be more confident in your delivery, even under tensed situation.

Conclusion

It is vital to make a good impression on executives while presenting financial information to them.

In addition to this, delivering a presentation can be a huge boost to your self-confidence.

By following the above steps, you will be taking your presentation into an incredible opportunity to raise your profile within your organization and set yourself up for success.